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It's correct that CERN is European. It's also correct that a significant portion of its budget comes from the US. It's further true that basically all the teams working the various experiments at the LHC are multi-national, consisting of European, Asian, and North American researchers (at least, there may be African and/or Australians as well). So it's kind of pointless and dumb for any particular nationality to beat their chest and proclaim that the Higgs boson is their discovery. This was a world-wide effort.

Not to pick specifically on the parent, but more generally on all the posts that are suggesting that the solution to the problem of employers demanding our FB passwords is to come up with a smart ass way to refuse. The fact of the matter is that unless Congress passes a law prohibiting this practice, your choices are going to be 1) provide the password, or 2) not get hired. There is no snappy answer in the world that's going to get some company to say, "oh, gee, I was going to force you to do the same thing that all of my other 50 million applicants have done, but because of the power of your pure logic, I guess I'll back down".

If you are hiring for a job that requires a clearance, you can ask if the person is a US citizen. Otherwise, you can only ask if the person is legally entitled to work in the US (i.e, is either a citizen or green-card holder). The example you put out regarding hiring foreign nationals is sort of right, sort of wrong. To get someone here on an H-1B work visa, you have to show that you haven't been able to find someone who is a citizen... or green-card holder.

But the bottom line is that for 90+% of all jobs, you can't ask if someone is a citizen.

... if it's made illegal to get into people's FB accounts, most companies are going to go with the flow. I'm a hiring manager where I work, and subject to all sorts of laws regarding what you can and can't do in terms of hiring. For most of these things, sure, you could get around them. But we are really averse to getting sued over this kind of thing, so we stick to the letter of the law, as do most companies. Yes, there are exceptions. But the fact is that making employer Facebook snooping illegal would cause an immediate and very sharp drop in the amount of employer Facebook snooping. Which is a good thing.

Me too except left hand at noon. Now cue up 6000 comments to the effect of "but but but... putting your hand on the shifter wears out your gearbox/fork/etc". To which I reply, bollocks. Unless you're doing something that actually puts some pressure on the the shifting system, you're not doing anything that will produce any noticeable wear. I put over 190,000 miles on each of two stick-shift pickups, had my hand on the shifter absolutely every mile of that, and did not notice even the slightest of ill effects.

Part of the problem with the John F. Can-opener (so nicknamed for her collision with a destroyer years ago) was that for years she was a reserve ship. Which meant in practice that she had to do all the stuff a regular ship had to do, but with about 70% of the manning and budget. So of course she fell apart.

Being assigned to the crew of Constitution is still a very much sought after posting due to the prestige of the posting. Only the very best and brightest ever get such duty.

Not so much. Constitution duty is very much sought after, as it makes you a semi-celebrity. And it's really easy duty. Best and the brightest? I think those guys go to nuke school. Good looking and reasonably articulate? Go to Old Ironsides. It's basically PR duty, and the Navy just doesn't put all that high a priority on it.

Not taking any position on the bit about slackers, but... aside from those who have to work Sunday mornings, is there anyone, anywhere in the US who actually loses an hour of sleep as a result of the DST switchover? Everyone I know just sleeps the same number of hours, therefore getting up an hour "later". That's why they do the switch on Saturday night. No doubt there's then some small amount of pseudo-jet lag on Monday, but how bad can that be, really?